Hurt
by stell-adora
Summary: Alexander Moran-Moriarty finds out that his boyfriend, Hamish Watson-Holmes, has been unfaithful. That leads to an argument in which Alex confronts Hamish about being ashamed to be dating him.


Hamish and Alex were sitting on opposite ends of the couch in the Holmes-Watson flat, watching a football match on television. It was the half, and Alex had begun to talk about the stats of some of the players. Hamish really wasn't all that interested in knowing how many attempts on goal Peter Crouch had made during his career, but he listened all the same. He liked hearing Alex's voice, its strong baritone so rich and comforting. Something had been nagging at the back of Hamish's mind all afternoon, and suddenly he couldn't hold it in any longer.

"Alex?" he said, interrupting. He knew it was rude, but at the moment, he paid no mind to the countless lessons on manners his dad had given him. "I can ask you anything, right?"

"Of course you can," replied his boyfriend. Alex had noticed something was bothering Hamish the moment he set foot in the flat, but he had waited until Hamish wanted to bring it up. That was usually the best way. If there was something Hamish didn't want you to know, he wouldn't tell you. Ever. Period. "Is something wrong?" he asked, knowing full well something was.

"Not…not exactly," said Hamish, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. "But…hypothetically, if I went to a party and slept with someone…someone who wasn't you…how angry would you be?" Hamish asked in a quiet voice he had hoped would sound nonchalant. No such luck. Alex blinked and stared at him for a moment. He knew that this was not a hypothetical case.

"I wouldn't be angry," he said softly, and for a moment Hamish's heart leapt. "I'd just be really, really hurt." Alex stared at the floor and pressed himself further away, into the arm of the couch, as Hamish's heart came crashing back down. "Hypothetically, of course," he said, his voice barely audible.

"I'm sorry, Lex," Hamish said, and from his voice Alex could tell that he really was. But that didn't soothe him at the moment. Hamish tried to reach out and put a hand on his shoulder, but Alex recoiled.

"Why would you do that?" Alex asked, a bit louder now. He had misspoken earlier. He was angry, but only because that's how he dealt with being hurt by someone. That's how he'd been trained.

"I don't know. I was drunk and I wasn't thinking, and…I don't know," Hamish said, incredibly ashamed of himself. "I'm sorry," he repeated. "I don't know what else to say, but I'm _so _sorry."

Alex almost laughed at that. A scathing, insincere laugh, to be sure, but a laugh. "Well then, everything's _fine_! I'm glad you're _sorry_."

"Please don't be angry," Hamish said, almost begging. He hated to see people angry, but especially his boyfriend, the person he was supposed to please and make happy all the time. He knew he had failed.

"You _cheated_ on me, Hamish!" Alex said, whirling around to face him. "You can't just expect me to be calm about it!"

"I know, I'm sorry," Hamish repeated. It was the only thing he could think of to say. Maybe if he said it often enough, that would make Alex see that he was really penitent, and forgive him. An unlikely thought, but he clung to it. "I was drunk, I didn't mean to."

"You still did it, though," Alex said. He took a deep breath, trying to steady his voice. "You really hurt me," he confessed. Hamish had made blunders before, but never anything like this. "I've always been good to you, and this is how you thank me. I know I sound like a whiny little bitch, but that's how I feel," he said sullenly. Honestly, he felt he had every right to whine about this, but saying that wouldn't help.

"You don't sound like a whiny little bitch," Hamish told him in an attempt to comfort him. There was a drawn out pause as neither of the boys knew what to say. "If it makes you feel any better, it wasn't another guy. It was Emily Adler. I was _that_ drunk," he said. Alex completely ignored this last, following his own train of thought.

"Where was this?" he asked, flicking his eyes over to Hamish, still on the other end of the couch.

"A party," Hamish said, not being vague on purpose, but instantly realising it sounded that way. He began to explain, but Alex cut in, not really caring whose party or where it was.

"A party I didn't get invited to. As usual," Alex sulked. This always happened. Hamish was popular at school, and would get invited to parties all the time. Alex never did. True, he probably wouldn't go if he had gotten invited, but that wasn't really the point. "You didn't even bother to tell me you were going," he said.

"You're angry with me," Hamish said, stating the obvious. _No shit_, Alex thought. It took all his willpower not to yell that at his boyfriend. "It was _Emily Adler_, though. I'm not even into girls!"

"Apparently you were last night," Alex said angrily to the floor, privately enjoying the double entendre.

"Okay, fine, but she's not really important right now," Hamish said, not getting the joke, as usual.

"No, what's important is, you cheated on me." Alex spat out the words as if just saying them was painful. Hamish moved a little bit closer to him, knowing better than to touch him right now, but dearly wishing he could. All he wanted was for them to hug, and hold each other, and say that everything was okay, and nothing like this would ever happen again, and they'd be happy. But he knew that wasn't going to happen.

"I didn't _cheat_ on you," he said, desperate to make Alex understand him. "Cheating is like when you do it all the time, with one person. This was just a mistake." They did this sometimes, defined exactly what words meant to them. It was easier to communicate when you knew exactly what the other person meant. Alex rolled his eyes. They definitely weren't on the same page, perhaps not even in the same dictionary.

"No, cheating is when you sleep with someone other than your boyfriend or girlfriend," he said firmly. "No exceptions. It may have been a mistake, but it was still cheating," he looked Hamish in the face, his expression a mixture of reprimand and hurt. Now it was Hamish who stared at the floor. Alex sighed, his mind churning. After a minute, he spoke again, back to his quiet, calm tone of earlier. "Are you ashamed of me, Misha?" he asked, using the nickname that no one but he was allowed to call Hamish. "Ashamed that we're together?" Without a thought, Hamish instantly responded.

"No! Of course not. No," he searched Alex's face. It was a complete blank, waiting for an answer. "A little," he confessed finally, after a second of thought. This deserved honesty. "Just a little."

"Oh my god," Alex whispered to himself. He felt like he was going to be physically sick. He brought his feet up onto the couch and buried his head in his knees.

"It's not you, it's just…I don't know," Hamish said, trying to explain the jumble of thoughts and feelings he had, but finding he couldn't. Instead, he just fell silent.

"No," said Alex, shaking his head into his knees. "You don't get to just say 'I don't know' and leave it at that. You fucking explain why you're ashamed to be seen in public with me." He looked up, the rims of his eyes red with the tears that were forming there.

"My friends don't like you," Hamish muttered. "It doesn't matter, though. I still love you," he said, reaching out a hand to touch his boyfriend's shoulder. Alex shook it off, unwilling to be comforted.

"You love me, but not enough to attempt to get other people to even _like_ me," he said sullenly. "Misha, you're the only friend I have," he confessed. "I know it's not as big a deal for you as it is for me. People like you, you have friends. But every time you're with them, I'm alone," he said. He hated how saying all this made him feel. It was like he was making Hamish choose, and that's not at all what he wanted.

"I know, I know. I'm being a really terrible person and I get that. I just…my friends are awful, okay? They're assholes. They're not very smart or funny, or even fun to be around. They're rude. I'm embarrassed by them. You wouldn't like them," he warned. He wasn't trying to dissuade Alex, just make him understand what he was in for.

"It doesn't matter whether or not I'd like them!" Alex erupted, practically leaping off the couch in order to properly face Hamish. "You choose them over me _all the time_. Yet you always say you don't like them, and that you love me. You went to that party without even telling me it was happening. You decided that my possible desire to go was less important than your 'image'. It's not that I _want_ to get invited to these things, or hang out with you and your other friends, but I'd like you to be considerate enough, and _care_ about me enough, to at least offer!" he broke off, turning his back and walking across the room. "You know what, forget it," he said, startlingly quiet after his outburst. "You don't understand."

"No, I don't," began Hamish. He was going to add something along the lines of 'but I want to, so please explain why I need to tell you every time I want to be around someone else for a change', but Alex cut him off.

"That's the problem," he said, quietly but with emphasis. "I...I don't think either of us understands the other anymore." He was still across the room, arms wrapped around himself protectively.

"What are you saying?" asked Hamish as he rose to walk over to Alex. Alex looked up at him.

"That either we need to _seriously_ work on this, or…we should just end it." Hamish just stared at him from a few steps away. "Choose," Alex prompted, knowing what he expected Hamish to say.

"Alex," Hamish said as he closed the gap between them and took the boy into his arms. For a minute Alex resisted, not wanting to back down from his ultimatum. But then, he realised how good it felt to be touching his boyfriend again, even so innocently as this, and he returned the embrace. "I love you, okay?" Hamish said reassuringly, not letting go. "And I know this is difficult. I mess up a lot, and I don't always know that I do, but I want to work on it. I screw up and I do a lot of shitty things and I'm pretty much a major asshole. But I want to change. I want to make you happy. I'm just warning you, I make mistakes a lot, and I don't know if that's easily fixed." Alex's breathing had become shallow, and his eyes stung with tears that were forming there, threatening to stain the shoulder of Hamish's purple button-down shirt. Hamish shifted so that the two were face to face. "Are you sure you can deal with all of this?" he asked seriously. He so desperately wanted to make things work between them, but if Alex wasn't up to it, he didn't want to tie him down.

"No, I'm not," Alex said as tears started to fall out of his eyes. "I want to be sure, I want to just say yes, and have us go back to normal, but…I can't help wondering if anything's really going to change." It hurt him to say this. He felt like his stomach was made of lead. The tears were flowing freely down his cheeks now, but he didn't notice. All he was concentrating on were Hamish's blue eyes. "If you love me so much, why do you keep hurting me? Why don't you ever _once_ stop and think, 'Hey, Alex wouldn't like this, I should stop before I piss him off'?" He felt like a needy little child saying this, and that just made him feel worse.

"I don't _mean_ to hurt you," Hamish said, returning Alex's gaze and talking directly to his green eyes. "I just stop thinking sometimes. It's easier to shut things off, let them go." At that point, Alex extricated himself from his boyfriend's arms and took a step back.

"You're just like your father," he said.

"That wasn't a compliment, was it?" Hamish said with a small smile. Then he saw the look on Alex's face, like everyone in the world had just turned their backs on him all at once. "Christ, sorry," he said, running his fingers through his blonde hair. "Not the time for jokes. That's what I mean, though. About not thinking. Sometimes I just say or do things, and I don't mean it." He paused, not knowing exactly what to do, so he just stood still and continued. "I want us to be together, Lex, and I'll try and think more. Promise."

Alex shook his head slightly, more in resignation than to disagree. "This is torture. One day, enjoying every minute we spend together, and the next, dealing with all the things you fucked up," he stopped, and cringed at his own words. "I'm sorry. That was really mean. I just…you make this really hard for me," he said, going back to sit on the couch. Hamish joined him there, sitting close.

"I know. I'm sorry. I'm fucked up," he put his hand tenderly on Alex's back. "Let me make it up to you," he said, almost begging. "Please."

"How do you propose to make it up to me?" Alex asked, leaning into Hamish. For all the things he had said earlier, he definitely didn't want to break up. He just wanted…something. His brain couldn't find the right word. It was like equality, he supposed.

"I don't know…" Hamish mumbled. Then suddenly, an idea struck him. "There's a party tomorrow night at Evan Moore's house. We can go together and I'll introduce you to everyone and we can hold hands and talk and things and if I'm being a dick you get to punch me in the face. How about that?" he proposed, eyes gleaming.

"Really?" Alex said, staring at him in soft disbelief. "You'll let me hold your hand?" Hamish smiled and drew Alex, who had a look of almost childlike wonder on his face, closer. He was sort of surprised the gesture meant that much to him.

"Yes, and we can kiss, and cuddle, and all of that," he said with a smile. He was so glad they were back on good terms.

"Even in front of all of your friends? Won't they…I don't know, _talk_?"

"That's all they ever do, why should I care?" he said. "So you'll go? I can't promise you'll have any fun."

"I'll like it if you're there," Alex said, nuzzling Hamish's neck. "Yeah, I want to go."

"Good," said Hamish. He laughed and shifted a little, Alex's nose tickling his sensitive neck. "I'm nervous," he said, lightheartedly. After a split second spent reflecting on what he had just confessed, he sobered a bit. "I don't know why I said that."

"Probably because that's how you feel," said Alex, smiling in an attempt to recapture Hamish's light mood. "I'm a little nervous too."

"My friends are awful, I'm warning you. You'll probably hate them. _I _do, most of the time," he mused. "I'm awful, too. I tend to drink a lot. Which is why you get to punch me in the face if I'm being a dick."

"Hamish, do you think you could... You know what, never mind," said Alex, forgoing his request in favour of adjusting his position in the crook of Hamish's arm.

"I could what?"

"I was going to ask if you could not drink tomorrow night. But, I know you like to, so it's fine," said Alex. Growing up in the Moriarty-Moran household, a kid got used to seeing people drunk. But he didn't like to think of his boyfriend that way.

"No, no. I won't," said Hamish seriously. "I mean, I'll try not to. I'll make a valiant effort." He kissed Alex lightly on the top of his head. He knew Alex didn't like to drink, and he didn't want him to feel excluded in a room full of new people. "…Can I apologise in advance?" Hamish said after a minute of thought.

"For what?"

"I'm afraid you won't like me when I'm with them," he muttered, slightly ashamed to be worried about something so petty.

"Well, I don't think anything you do tomorrow night could be as bad a cheating on me with Emily Adler, and I'm not angry about that anymore, now am I?"


End file.
